He also began experimenting with recording for the first time after borrowing a four-track recorder. It was around this time that Smith began using drugs, including alcohol, with friends. Smith graduated from Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon.Īt fourteen, Smith left his mother's home in Texas and moved to Portland, Oregon, to live with his father, who was then working as a psychiatrist. Many of the people on his mother's side of the family were non-professional musicians his grandfather was a Dixieland drummer, and his grandmother sang in a glee club. At this age he composed an original piano piece, "Fantasy", which won him a prize at an arts festival. Smith began playing piano at age nine, and at ten began learning guitar on a small acoustic guitar bought for him by his father. In 2001, he said: "I don't necessarily buy into any officially structured version of spirituality. Smith felt that going to church did little for him, except make him "really scared of Hell". It's not my place to say what." įor much of his childhood, Smith's family was a part of the Community of Christ but began attending services at a local Methodist church. The name "Charlie" also appears in songs "Flowers for Charlie" and "No Confidence Man." In a 2004 interview, Jennifer Chiba, Smith's partner at the time of his death, said that Smith's difficult childhood was partly why he needed to sedate himself with drugs as an adult: "He was remembering traumatic things from his childhood – parts of things. He wrote about this part of his life in "Some Song". Smith stated he may have been sexually abused by Welch at a young age, an allegation that Welch has denied. Smith endured a difficult childhood and a troubled relationship with his stepfather Charlie Welch. But I won't forget about it, although I'm tempted to because I don't like it there." Smith later had a tattoo of a map of Texas drawn on his upper arm and said: "I didn't get it because I like Texas, kind of the opposite.
His parents divorced when he was six months old, and Smith moved with his mother to Duncanville, Texas. Steven Paul Smith was born at the Methodist Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, the only child of Gary Smith, a student at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Bunny Kay Berryman, an elementary school music teacher.
At the time of his death, Smith was working on his sixth studio album, From a Basement on the Hill, which was posthumously produced and released in 2004. The autopsy evidence was inconclusive as to whether the wounds were self-inflicted or the result of homicide. In 2003, aged 34, he died in Los Angeles, California, from two stab wounds to the chest. His struggles with drugs and mental illness affected his life and work, and often appeared in his lyrics.
Smith was a heavy drinker and drug user at times throughout his life, and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and depression. Smith rose to mainstream prominence when his song " Miss Misery"-included in the soundtrack for the film Good Will Hunting(1997)-was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Original Song category in 1998. In 1997, he signed a contract with DreamWorks Records, for which he recorded two albums. Smith had a distinctive vocal style, characterized by his "whispery, spiderweb-thin delivery", and often used multi-tracking to create vocal layers, textures, and harmonies.Īfter playing in the rock band Heatmiser for several years, Smith began his solo career in 1994, with releases on the independent record labels Cavity Search and Kill Rock Stars (KRS). Smith's primary instrument was the guitar, though he also played piano, clarinet, bass guitar, drums, and harmonica. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and lived much of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he first gained popularity. Steven Paul Smith (August 6, 1969 – October 21, 2003), known professionally as Elliott Smith, was an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.
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